Digital Trends

HP Pavilion HDX September 17th, 2007 | by Jason Tomczak

Keyboard & Mouse

Because the body of the HDX is built to support a 20.1" LCD screen, there's plenty of room for a full-sized 101-key keyboard with separate number keypad, just like you'd find on standard desktop keyboards. This is very handy for folks who use Excel spreadsheets, or for those who like to continually count their stacks of cash with Vista's calc program.

The HDX's touchpad is seamlessly built in to the face of the notebook, dumping the old-school recessed design. The HDX touchpad has a near 16x9 shape, making it ideal for use with the widescreen LCD. The touchpad has a separate scroll pad which you can use to scroll up and down through web pages, Word docs, etc., all without using the Up or Down arrow keys. This feature is reminiscent of Apple's two-finger scrolling function on newer laptops.

One cool thing about the touchpad is the on/off switch. Personally, I loathe typing away on my laptop only to find that the touchpad has activated and thrown my cursor to a random spot on the page. I eventually have to locate the orphaned text and reunite it with the proper paragraph. HP fixes this annoyance with brilliant simplicity - an on/off button.

Ports, Jacks and Plugs

In addition to all the components mentioned above, the HDX comes replete with four (4) USB 2.0 ports, two headphone outputs (one for you, one for sharing), digital audio out, a mic input, IR receiver, an HDMI output (one of the first notebooks in the world to offer HDMI), a VGA-out, eSATA out, TV-out, an "Expansion Port 3", a 4-pin FireWire connector (sadly, not a full-fledged 6-pin FireWire port), S-Video input, and a Kensington lock slot. This is one of the most complete and feature-rich laptops out there. 

The back of the HDX reveals video and audio outputs

Webcam and Mics

The HDX makes for a super-cool web-chat system, thanks to the built-in webcam and stereo microphones. Yes, stereo mics built right into the LCD bezel. The 640x480 webcam is good to very-good in quality and records .MPG movies as well as still images (jpg). The angle of the webcam can be adjusted ever-so-slightly inside the LCD screen's bezel.

Power & Battery

The HDX uses a 180watt AC adaptor to power its 9-cell Li-Ion battery. 180watts is a lot, especially when you compare it to the MacBook Pro's 85watt power usage. Some smaller desktops use 200watt power supplies. Accordingly, the HDX does not perform well with battery life. It's just not intended to be an unplugged system. It'll power up and give you enough time to get a modest amount of work done (90-150 minutes), but it drains battery like a 12-cylinder Cadillac land-yacht burns though gas. No worries! Show those electrons who's boss! 

Warranty

As with most computers, the HDX has a 1-year limited warranty. When considering the overall cost of this system, it is very smart to get any supplemental warranty support from HP, no matter the cost. If your HDX is 12 months and 1 day old and the LCD screen or a component on the motherboard goes belly-up, it'll be expensive to repair - much more expensive than an extended warranty plan would ever cost. Remember, this is not a cheap-o $500 laptop that you can just write off as an acceptable loss. Treat it (and your wallet) with due care.

In the Box

Along with the HDX, you'll get the power supply, battery, IR extender cable, HD television antenna, coax cable adapter, stereo headphones (earbuds) and the HDX Media Center remote control.

As previously mentioned, the HDX comes with Windows Vista Ultimate. You'll also find Norton Internet Security 2007, HP Total Care software, PC Recovery, Wireless Home Network, Roxio Backup MyPC, Microsoft Works, Microsoft Office 2007 trial edition, AOL Music, Vongo, HP PhotoSmart Premier, HP Quick Play, Muvee AutoProducer, Roxio Creator Premier, Serif WebPlus 10 and Adobe's ever-popular Acrobat Reader.

Image Courtesy of HP